Breakwater

by Catherine Jones Payne

  “And Jade?” He turned toward me, his eyes wide. “After all this is over, and my innocence proven, I hope you’ll come to realize what a mistake this whole mess was. I still love you. I know you’re angry, and I understand why. But at the end of all this, I want to start over. I still want you to be my wife.”

  White-hot anger flooded my veins. What a contrived, manipulative speech. I couldn’t even hear the crowd’s reaction over the pounding in my ears. Does he think anyone will fall for it?

  I started to crane my neck to gauge the crowd, but Mother clamped down on my arm with her hand.

  “Stay still,” she murmured. “Look at the floor.”

  Pushing down my fury, I did as she said.

  The king said, “That is neither here nor there, Captain Tor. Please stick to the facts of your testimony.”

  Nausea curled in my stomach. I thought I might vomit. Mother grabbed my hand as I struggled to compose myself.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.” Tor clasped his hands together. “I just wanted to make it clear that Jade is not at fault.”

  “Did you tell anyone else about your plan to meet Lady Jade in the courtyard?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  Tor answered the king’s questions for what felt like an eternity. We broke for lunch, and when we returned, the king called for Paulos, a merman who worked in Tor’s house, to come forward. As Paulos droned on about Anna’s history of employment in the house, my attention began to drift. I let my mind wander, escaping in a vision of swimming off the reef with Kiki.

  When Felix replaced Paulos in front of the king, I forced myself back to reality.

  “Describe your business, Lord Felix.” The king rested his chin on one hand.

  “Excuse me, Your Majesty?” Felix asked.

  “Your business. Tell me about it.”

  Felix cast a glance in my direction. “Well, Your Majesty, you know that I trade with the overlanders. Pearls, for the most part.”

  “I don’t suppose,” the king asked drily, “that you’d have any idea what Anna could have blackmailed your family with?”

  Felix drew himself to his full length. “Naturally, Your Majesty, I haven’t the faintest idea. My records are in order and my taxes up to date. And as you heard yourself from my son—there was no blackmail. Lady Jade’s imagination ran wild in that part of her story.”

  I dug my fingernails into Mother’s wrist and willed my mind to drift. Kiki. The reef. The drop-off. Rhea had been so frightened by the tiny shark we’d encountered the last time we’d all gone into the deep ocean together, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that the sharks in the city were far more deadly.

  The king finished interviewing first Felix and then Yvonna and announced that we would adjourn, returning the next day for more testimony. With a sob of relief, I fled the court and swam away from the palace and toward my house with all the speed I could muster. My mother followed in my wake.

  “Jade!” she called.

  I turned around. “What?”

  “Slow down. We don’t want to get too far ahead of the crowd. Not after all that.”

  My gills flared. “I can’t be here.” My voice broke. “I’m about to lose it in front of everyone, Mother.”

  She rested her hand on my shoulder. “You of all people should know—it’s not safe for us in the canals today.”

  Chapter Ten

  I struggled to hold it together as we kept pace with the dispersing crowd, but by the time we reached home, I had dissolved into sobs that wracked my entire body.

  “Depths, child,” Mother said, rubbing my back. “We really picked quite the fiancé for you, didn’t we? At least you didn’t marry him.”

  “D-did they . . . ” I couldn’t speak through the sobs.

  “Slow down,” she said in a calm, soothing voice. “We’re all okay. Let me get you a puffer fish tincture.”

  She guided me to a hammock and moved away toward the kitchen.

  “D-d-did they bel-believe him?” I managed to choke out as she rustled through a cabinet.

  She sighed, pulled down a clamshell bottle, and swam back to me. “Some of them. Not all.” She uncapped the bottle, waved it under my left gill for a moment, and recapped it. “There. That should calm you down.”

  “Why did he . . . ” More sobs cut off my words, but I tried to stifle them to let the tincture—a highly diluted puffer fish extract—wash over my pulsing gills.

  “He’s giving you—and the king—an opportunity to save face. This way the king can acquit him without suggesting that his advisor’s daughter is lying in court. It was remarkably clever, really. Diabolically clever.

  “And for the barrister to not even question you in court? Normally I’d say she was out of her mind, but she’s coached Tor very well. She knows it’s as important that he wins over the public as it is that he wins over the king.”

  “It doesn’t matter if he escapes punishment if everyone believes him guilty,” I said, my voice dull.

  “He’d never be able to show his face in proper society again. And for a merman like Tor, that’s a fate worse than death or banishment.”

  My chest heaved. “And his talk of marriage?” My voice squeaked on the word marriage.

  “He means it, I think. A marriage to you in two or three years sends the message that his acquittal is fully justified. It paves the way for full acceptance into society and lifts the last taint of suspicion from him.”

  “Skub,” I muttered.

  Mother chuckled and shook her head. “Obviously there will be no marriage, no matter what tricks Yvonna tries to pull to make it happen.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The presumption! As if I’d ever.”

  Mother grabbed a tablet and a scrib and sank into her hammock at the center of the table. “Get some rest. Tomorrow shouldn’t be quite as brutal as today was, but it won’t be easy, either.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  The medicine worked, I decided. I still felt sad, but the panic clawing at my insides had settled. I flicked my tail to propel my body toward the hall.

  When I reached the bottom, I turned back around. “Mother?”

  “Yes?” She looked up from her tablet.

  “Did I do alright today?”

  She gave me a tired smile. “You did very well. I’m proud of you, Jade.”

  Too many emotions swirled through my head as I drifted up the hall to my room. I sat and stared out the window until I heard the sound of Benjamin’s and Aunt Junia’s voices below.

  Relief flooded me, and I darted down the corridor and into Aunt Junia’s arms.

  “I’m so sorry, child,” she said. “It sounds like it was a terrible day.”

  I locked eyes with Benjamin and immediately wished I’d stayed in my room or found some way to moderate my reaction. Anger burned hot in his eyes. He spat, “I hope the king banishes the skub from the city forever.”

  “Watch your language,” said Aunt Junia.

  He tightened his lips and fell silent.

  “It’s okay,” I mouthed in his direction. Then I said, “Let’s be honest—we all hope for that.”

  Aunt Junia raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  “We also have to accept the likelihood that the king will acquit,” said Mother.

  Nausea overtook me. “You think so?”

  “The king needs to save face almost as much as Tor does. Now that Tor’s given him an out . . . ” She turned to Benjamin and Aunt Junia and explained what had happened during the trial.

  My gills flared as she recounted Tor’s testimony. When I glanced at Benjamin again, I saw more rage reflected in his eyes than I’d ever seen in him before.

  “Let it go, urchin,” I whispered to him. “We can’t change anything by hating him.”

  He scoffed. “Can you honestly tell me that you can overlook what he’s done?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t overlook it or let it go. I won’t ever trust him again. But I’m too tired to hate him anymore.”<
br />
  “I bet Pippa hates him.”

  “Maybe she does,” I said. “She’s lost a lot.”

  “So have you.” He chewed his lower lip.

  “Let’s just get through tomorrow,” said Mother. “Today was hard enough without adding anything more to it.”

  My shoulders drooped. I reached over to give him a hug, then I nodded to Mother and Aunt Junia and retreated back to my chamber. I ducked through the privacy screen just before I lost my composure.

  “Jade?” Mother called up the corridor. “You have to get up, or we’ll be late.”

  I lay awake on my hammock, unable to muster the energy or courage to move. Panic collected in my throat at the thought of entering the court. I’d have to see Tor and Yvonna again.

  Likely, the king would summon me to answer more clarifying questions or to confirm a sequence of events. That meant I’d have to speak again. In front of all of them.

  “Jade?” she called.

  I turned my head toward my doorway. “I’ll be there in a moment,” I said, my voice cracking.

  Mother peeked into my room. “Are you alright?”

  I shrugged and stared at the wall.

  She drew near, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me into a sitting position. “You can do this,” she said, her voice intense but gentle. “You are your father’s daughter, and you are capable of anything, just like he was.”

  “I miss him,” I murmured.

  “I do, too.” She straightened her back. “But we mustn’t waste the day in nostalgia. He was a man of action, and he would want us to take action.”

  I laughed. “You sure you’re not talking about yourself?”

  “Well,” she said, straightening her wrap, “he and I were a lot alike. That’s what made our marriage work so well.”

  “Then where did I come from?” I asked with a soft smile.

  She caressed my hair. “You’re more like us than you think. You have an unbreakable core. You were the most stubborn child I’ve ever met, you know.”

  “Remarkable that you decided to have Benjamin.” I stuck my tongue out at her.

  “You have no idea,” she muttered as she ruffled my hair. “My mother said you were payback for how I’d terrorized her as a child. I expect that someday you’ll have to deal with a little girl just as defiant as you were. But you’ll be glad she defies you, in spite of your frustrations, because you’ll know she has the courage to take on the world if she ever has to. Like you’re doing today.” She grabbed my hand. “Now get up.”

  With a deep sigh, I pulled myself out of the hammock, every muscle in my body protesting. “I guess so.”

  “It’s unlikely that the trial will last beyond today. When we come back home, it’ll all be over except for the verdict and sentencing.”

  I clung to that hope as I strung my dolphin pendant around my neck.

  To my relief, the king only called me forward once that morning to confirm a few minor details about Mother’s testimony, and Tor’s barrister only asked me a single question.

  When Pippa stood in front of the throne, my heart beat faster. I hated that she was being put through the trauma of testifying after all she’d been through.

  “Did you notice any unusual behavior in Anna in the days leading up to her death?” the king asked.

  Pippa hesitated. “She did seem jumpier than usual, Your Majesty.”

  “Did she confide in you about it?”

  “I never asked, Your Majesty. I just assumed her job was more stressful than normal that week.”

  “Do you have any knowledge of this blackmail against Lord Felix that Lady Jade spoke about?”

  Pippa stared at the floor. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. I wish I could tell you more. I don’t think Anna wanted to say much without proof. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone to—” She choked on a sob. “—get hurt.”

  The king called for a break halfway through the day, and Mother and I returned home to get something to eat—naturally, George had fixed my favorite salad—and hide from prying eyes until the trial resumed. When we returned to our hammocks near the front of the court, it was Rhea’s time to testify.

  She looked lovely in a yellow wrap clasped with an emerald brooch at her shoulder.

  It’s almost over. I smiled at Rhea as she moved to float before the king’s throne, but she didn’t seem to see me. Odd. I’d have thought she’d be looking for me.

  “Lady Rhea, thank you for coming,” the king said. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about the events of thirty-three nights ago, before Lady Jade happened upon Captain Tor cradling Anna’s body.”

  Rhea nodded.

  “Did you and Lady Jade arrive at Lady Yvonna’s party together?” he asked.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” She twisted her hands until they went white. Something in her tone froze my blood.

  “When did you arrive?”

  “Early. We were the first guests.”

  “Why did you go to the party so early?”

  She remained silent at first. Her voice sounded strangled as she answered, “Jade wanted to get there early. She was meeting Tor in the courtyard for a private lover’s tryst.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What?” I demanded. My gills flared, and pain shot through my stomach like someone had stabbed me in the gut with a dagger.

  “Jade,” Mother whispered.

  The king’s piercing blue eyes met mine, and then they returned to focus on Rhea.

  I looked to my left and made eye contact with Yvonna, who sat several hammocks down. A triumphant smile curled on her lips.

  What bribe did you use to induce Rhea to lie? I wondered. I didn’t hear anything else until Mother tapped my arm. When I glanced over at her, she pointed to the front, and I realized the king was staring at me.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” My cheeks felt hot. I swam forward until I floated parallel with Rhea.

  “How could you?” I whispered.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Lady Jade, Lady Rhea, you have given conflicting testimonies. We must investigate the matter further to decide between them.”

  Sharks go into frenzy only when they sense blood in the water. Stay calm. Stay calm.

  “Lady Jade, could you give a detailed account of why you claim Lady Rhea wanted to arrive at the party early?”

  A headache pounded in my temples. “She has designs on your youngest son, Prince Theo, Your Highness.”

  The crowd started murmuring again, but I tried to ignore them. It wasn’t my fault that I was being forced to expose Rhea as a social climber.

  “She wanted to make sure she was already at the party and talking to a handsome boy when he arrived. She . . . ” I trailed off as the memory struck me. “She was going into the courtyard with me, but Lord Philip showed up just before we swam through the door, and she decided to stay and visit with him until Prince Theo arrived.”

  “Ah.” The king nodded. “That’s an interesting detail. Is Lord Philip in the court?”

  At first, no one spoke, but then a hesitant male voice from the back said, “Aye.”

  “Please come forward.”

  Wild hope arose within me, and then I glanced at Rhea and saw terror in her wide eyes.

  I looked back up at the king and saw him staring at Rhea. He hadn’t missed her discomfort.

  She did this to herself. It did little to reassure my broken heart.

  When Philip reached Rhea and me, the king asked, “Lord Philip, did you happen to notice Lady Jade and Lady Rhea when you arrived at the party that night?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. “I arrived early. They were the only two guests present when I passed through the door.”

  I glanced over at Rhea. She looked like she might vomit.

  “And where were they at the moment you arrived?”

  “They were together at the back door. Lady Rhea—” He hesitated, looking at Rhea with an apologetic expression on his face. “—had her hand on the door handle. When she saw
me, she said something to Lady Jade and then swam toward me to strike up a conversation.”

  “Thank you, Philip,” the king said, twisting his fingers in his beard. “Lady Rhea, why was your hand on the door if Lady Jade had set up a private tryst with Captain Tor?” He smirked. “Were you planning on joining them?”

  The crowd gave an uneasy chuckle.

  Rhea trembled. “I-I wish to recant a piece of my testimony, Your Highness. I’m afraid I misremembered, and I would like to set it to rights.”

  I looked down at the floor. She could recant in court, but she had irreparably ruptured our friendship.

  Pippa, Aunt Junia, Mother, and I all stared at each other as we sat around the table in the main room of my house.

  “We won, I think,” I said softly to Pippa.

  “We’ll find out in five days,” Pippa said. “But even if justice is rendered, I don’t know if it was worth the cost. What if it doesn’t make anyone safer? What if it just angers the mer even more?”

  I looked down at my hands. “Perhaps you were right, Mother. Maybe it would’ve been better for him to be quietly demoted. We could’ve avoided the whole spectacle.”

  Mother harrumphed and returned to glowering at the wall.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “A mob come to kill us?” I quipped.

  “Don’t say such things, child,” scolded Aunt Junia. She went to answer the door.

  Alexander floated on the doorstep. “Is Jade home?”

  “Alexander?” I flipped away from the table and darted to greet him. “Please come in.”

  Aunt Junia moved aside to admit him to the house, and he grabbed my hands.

  “Alexander,” Mother said. “What a surprise. It’s been a long time.”

  “Not as long as you would have wished, I’m sure,” he said with a bow.

  She smirked. “You know me too well.”

  “Alexander and I ran into each other recently,” I said, wracking my brain to figure out how much to say without giving away that I’d been lurking in the naiad quarter. “He came to the trial.”